How Your Crawl Space Affects Your Home’s Air Quality

The old adage, “Out of sight, out of mind”, could apply quite well to many people’s crawl spaces. What they don’t imagine or realize is just how much of an impact a crawl space has on the air in their main living space.

What’s Happening Inside Too Many Crawl Spaces

What happens inside a crawl space is directly affected by the weather and temperatures outside of it. The most ventilation your crawl space receives probably comes from a conveniently-directed gust of wind or pressure changes. Even so, nearly all crawl spaces are not well-ventilated, and this causes stagnant air to gather inside.

Moisture is also drawn into the crawl space due to a few different factors:

• The dryness of the dirt inside it compared to the dirt around the foundation
• Your house drawing moisture up from the ground
• Warm, humid air on hot days entering the cooler environment of the crawl space through foundation vents, thereby increasing the humidity

When that moisture evaporates, the water vapor will rise and settle in various areas, such as the floor insulation or ductwork. In the warmer months, the increased humidity caused by warm air entering the crawl space results in condensation that can also settle on the ductwork and floor insulation, as well as the subfloor and floor joists.

What You Didn’t Want to Know About Your Crawl Space

If you have a crawl space, it’s probably not well-ventilated because most crawl spaces aren’t. This lack of ventilation results in stagnant air.

Now, remember that moisture and condensation we were just mentioning? Here’s the bad news: not only does the condensation lead to mold or even radon growth--the damp, musty environment being created down below along with all of that stagnant air becomes a habitat for unwanted pests, namely rodents and termites. In other words, your crawl space becomes an ideal environment for things far less than ideal.

How Crawl Space Air Gets into Your Home

You’ve probably experienced how upstairs rooms during summertime are a lot hotter than the rooms downstairs. This is because cooler air is drawn up from below as the warm air in your house rises. This is how that cooler air from your crawl space enters your house, which can be quite problematic if that air is smelly or of poor quality.

Using the exhaust fans in your bathroom or kitchen might worsen the problem. Running those fans creates negative pressure in your house, which will then pull in air from the outdoors and from your crawl space. If your HVAC system is located in the crawl space, even more of that dirty air might be finding its way into your house. Dank air can creep into leaks in your ductwork or air filter and then be circulated by your HVAC throughout the entire house.

In Need of a Clean Crawl Space?

If you’re noticing poor air quality, moisture issues, or bad odors in your home, a dirty crawl space might be the culprit. GreenPro offers professional, bio-friendly cleaning services, including an EPA-registered, non-toxic, chemical-free, botanical fungistat/disinfectant that kills 99.99% of harmful odor-causing bacteria.

Schedule your free inspection today!